Living in a Tower Block | 1970s London | Council Estate | Where the houses use to be | 1971

These are some extracts from the original documentary by award winning Producer/Director Sir. Jeremy Isaacs.
What does it mean for people who once lived in cramped Victorian terrace houses to move to the new council built blocks of flats?
First shown: 29/06/1971
If you would like to license a clip from this video please e mail:
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Quote: VT4573

[@rhythmictiger]

'I don't know who they design them for' Exactly, very thoughtful woman, I wish I could sit down and have a cup of tea with her!

[@doktoruzo]

@@marklola12 ..thanks for the link. I have watched it a few years ago. Fascinating piece of social history.

[@edwinimmanuel2041]

I dont mean to be so offtopic but does anybody know of a trick to log back into an instagram account?? I was dumb lost my account password. I would love any assistance you can offer me

[@karsynbraydon8137]

@Edwin Immanuel Instablaster ;)

[@edwinimmanuel2041]

@Karsyn Braydon thanks so much for your reply. I got to the site on google and im waiting for the hacking stuff atm. I see it takes a while so I will reply here later with my results.

[@edwinimmanuel2041]

@Karsyn Braydon it did the trick and I finally got access to my account again. I'm so happy! Thank you so much you saved my ass !

[@bobrobson1468]

I lived on that estate from 1970 to 1975. As a 15 year old I didn't really understand how bad it was. It was just where we lived. But God, it is so depressing looking at it now.

[@nevittwoods1730]

Reminds we of places i would see from window as train went into waterloo decades ago☕ i would often wonder if residents had had old vic or edwardian house before they lived in them👍

[@TMGVideoDiaries]

Do you remember this woman.? She looks like shes lacking a sense of existance. Zombie

[@styzoom]

She nails it at the end: "They like the outside of their places to look nice and so do we".

[@TrueBrit1]

"If only they had consulted ordinary people".................right there tells you all you need to know about what's wrong with our country. We the people, the 'little' people, know nothing & have nothing to contribute & should be grateful for whatever small token gesture they throw at us. The lady at the end was well spoken, thoughtful, sharp and a visionary of what the future held. She was of course right, but people like here are never heard by the powers that be. Or they are, but are especially ignored and labelled as a trouble-maker and one to keep an eye on.

[@nl59]

How would you say those times compare to now?

[@mindblast3901]

@@nl59 Not much different But more free freedom of speech been Silenced. wrong Think

[@davidbarnes241]

@True Brit Well said. Nothing has changed since then and the average person is still treated as a child by those in government and indeed, all public and private institutions.

[@primalconvoy]

When a 1970's working class woman is more eloquent and thoughtful than some middle class people today... Council tower blocks haven't aged well, have contributed by to crime (giving criminals extra, elevated walkways between blocks) and even she could see some of that, only a few years after their construction.

[@thornbird6768]

These elevated walkways were never intended for drug dealers and muggers ! That’s the people not the building . These buildings suffered no fate when decent people lived in them ! Add the lack of maintenance and here lies the problem !

[@GEGBoxing]

The white working class were well educated back in the day. The importation of backward cultures has resulted in a mixed working class, underclass actually, barely able to speak decipherable English or read or write.

[@tedoneilclark4710]

Bless them all. It must have been a cultural shock. Especially to be isolated and away from family and friends.

[@islamictalksetc]

the last lady is very clever by her observations

[@MamiYankeeMusic]

these old clips are so interesting! love them

[@James-oo1yq]

She knew! Very early on she saw the misery of living in concrete tower blocks with drug dealers and awful neighbours

[@thornbird6768]

She recognised the loneliness ! These estates didn’t become crime ridden dumps until the 80’s and even worse in the 90’s !

[@James-oo1yq]

@@thornbird6768 They were awful from the early 1970s. At least my estate was. The Heroin use in the 1980s was horrendous! Three times I stumbled upon dead bodies. Three girls in their early 20s overdosed. Concrete carbuncles that no Human should ever live in

[@karimtabrizi376]

Wow the second woman was really insightful and lucid about the estate. Of course 10 years later they would become dumps. Architects should have been made to live in them

[@PneumatinisPlaktukas15]

How is the architect at fault here exactly? Do youthink architects control who lives in their buildings?

[@chinny_reckon]

But yes the woman interviewed had a lovely way about her, bless her.

[@sandmanjono1239]

Fascinating & sad documentary..... I’d like to see all of it tbh

[@elliot5224]

Here is the link for the full documentary! kzbin.info/www/bejne/rnnIhp1ofc99m80

[@plinkplanky]

Thanks for the link

[@sandmanjono1239]

@@elliot5224 great thank you so much 😊

[@anthonydiggle2926]

It is interesting to watch the movie "Sitting Target" from 1972 with Oliver Reed and Ian Mcshane, as a lot of the scenes were filmed in this area.

[@joelmonkley6177]

The first lady was so lonely bless her rest in peace ❤

[@trevorrandom]

"Television is the only thing I've got"

[@christontrigwell5240]

Same thing with me 😮

[@michaelturner4457]

KZbin is the only thing I've got 😢

[@Neil-Aspinall]

I always thought 'On the Buses' was so depressing and had a sense of hopelessness.

[@felix_five]

Looks dreamy.

[@frazzleface753]

"Look at the Utopia we've created!!......Oh Darling, it's not for me, it's for the little people!!"

[@harleyrobertson73]

I really like the design of these flats, the 60s 70s grubby architecture is strangely attractive

[@Captain_Lockheed]

Only if you don't have to live there.

[@harleyrobertson73]

@@Captain_Lockheed I had to live in a gray block of flats built in the 60s a few years back, quite enjoyed that flat

[@Captain_Lockheed]

@@harleyrobertson73 similar here. I grew up in the 70's living in concrete built flats on a council estate but I certainly wouldn't want to go back. Nice that some people like them I suppose.

[@mxbx307]

I also like brutalist architecture of this type. You can definitely see and feel what they were trying to achieve, even if it didn't really last too long.

[@TheStevenWhiting]

Problem is the area and people that ended up in them and the lack of funding by the government. In Europe its a totally different story. There was an documentary George Clark did and they took at look at Vienna's housing and they are so much better.

[@peat6154]

Not all of Europe. I went to an estate on the outskirts of Madrid and it looked like an African slum

[@derin111]

Same in Germany. Worked much better.

[@tina5203]

What a lonely and miserable existence !!

[@derin111]

The problem was NOT the buildings. It was the attitude of both the Councils who they belonged to and I’m sorry to say, the People who lived in them! Neither party was able or prepared to take ownership of the responsibility for maintaining them and hence they VERY RAPIDLY deteriorated. That woman’s prediction at 4.20 was absolutely spot on! She gave them 3-4 years. Blocks were put up all over war destroyed German cities and were rapidly expanding especially in the 1960s and 70s. I am writing this right now sitting in just such a 1970s block in Germany and it is in perfect and clean order! Nothing I’ll wager exists in my home town of London in the same way.

[@DaraM73]

There’s no need to blur out the TV set image. This entire film has been viewable from many sources over the years. Upload the full length doc.

[@primalconvoy]

Yes, why was the telly blurred? I doubt she was watching anything that went against KZbin's rules.

[@stuartwilliams4555]

It was the 70s. There's an 80% chance that whatever it was would offend today's sensibilities!

[@EgoShredder]

@but ton Even their own shadow is oppressed. I bet BLM will start looting in solidarity with the plight of the shadow.

[@tonyinit8488]

Stanley Matthews used to be king of the wing with an excellent delivery into the box.... I see he turned to delivering furniture afterwards.....

[@sarahlouise7163]

what a nice lady they build them like that because they believe you deserve no different it always makes me annoyed when you see high rise flats stacked up, but with huge empty green between the blocks why not use that same acreage to build traditional housing with gardens? it’s so soviet. boxes for the proletariat

[@James-oo1yq]

Why? It's much much cheaper to build upwards. The land you need to buy is tiny. Living standards are not high on an architects priority, unfortunately! I spent my first 10 years in a massive high-rise, and as a kid it was fun....just avoid the strange men in stairwells

[@nikitanokia1249]

thx 4 the upload, hi from london

[@jamesbomd3503]

I should have switched off my TV 4 hours ago And been sound asleep In bed but these little Snippets from Thames Are intoxicating and addictive

[@dypes26]

Concrete is brutal

[@EgoShredder]

So is Communism where it all comes from, e.g. brutalist architecture.

[@dypes26]

​@@EgoShredder Its a feature of post ww2. Fast reconstruction of Europe. The English and Americans used it to shove their underclass into soulless structures.

[@EgoShredder]

@@dypes26 A really long and exhaustive answer to this could be given, but this is not the place for that. Long story short we defeated the wrong enemy in WW2 and paid the price ever since, as Europe has been in decline ever since.

[@jamescurran1375]

@@EgoShredder “the wrong enemy” gtfo.

[@EgoShredder]

@@jamescurran1375 Research the JQ and then try tell me I am wrong. I've yet to encounter anyone who has done this, who has come away saying WW2 worked out well for Europeans.

[@PneumatinisPlaktukas15]

I must say that the design is beautiful.

[@saborfrancias]

My life is like that. Cuz i dont like sports but im not a hipster either so i dont fit in 🤷‍♂️ i like jubgle and velvet underground though

[@marclaw4511]

Totally isolated the folk from the war years.Humans were meant to live on the ground not in the sky.

[@mrrooter3630]

Great short term solution at first but no good for long term. You were getting paid on how quickly you could build them regardless off how many shortcuts you made which meant bad build quality from the start and whoever designed them must have forgotten how tall they were because you'd go up to one of the top floors on a windy day and the thing glass in the windows would be shaking like mad.

[@andymerrett]

Oh goodness, the narrator here sounds just like (well, OK, similar) to Paul Vaughan who narrated "Threads".

[@Jk-oz5qn]

They said it used to be slums id wish they see these flats today

[@Puppy-ew4be]

Why have you blurred out her TV screen? And why has nobody else commented on this? Are you all blind?

[@InnocentAbyssinianCat-eb7ge]

She's right about the architects deliberately coming up with this design so too cause depression amongst residents living there making it harder to get out of poverty

[@Ozymandias1]

1:24 Poor people had to watch blurred television back then.

[@Puppy-ew4be]

Not sure who did it, but they are a tosser.

[@FigaroHey]

I remember an overheard conversation. Someone said "The church should sell all its art and grand buildings and use the money to feed the poor." And the second one said, "Then the art and beautiful buildings would all be locked up in the collections of tye rich and where would the poor go to see and hear anything beautiful? The poor want beauty, too, not just a couple days' food that they'd get when the billionaires bought the art and closed the churches." This woman is right in saying that the poor are just like the rich: they want beauty, too, in their homes and surroundings, but the rich who dictate to the poor don't take the human spirit into consideration. I wonder if one reason these estates ended up destroyed and disrespected by the people settled in them is that the ugliness didn't inspire awe and appreciation and respect, pride in where they lived.

[@marklola12]

I actually like the look of them but they needed more greenery etc around, issue with these things...the upkeep, they are never maintained

[@disrealnow9664]

they be slumming it

[@marktrvls1218]

Truly disastrously ugly structures, the lady at the end had common sense ideas 40 years ahead of her time

[@jamesbomd3503]

I didn't think they had the technology to blur A TV picture then Why would they blur out what was on the telly

[@spiegel3935]

Is this the Doddington Estate?

[@marklola12]

Yes here's full doc kzbin.info/www/bejne/rnnIhp1ofc99m80

[@GEGBoxing]

No. Wynstanley. SW11.

[@bellosardo84]

now they have all been knocked down to build luxury flats. the whole area dramatically changed compared to this video.

[@jamescurran1375]

No they haven’t. They’re all still there

[@jamescurran1375]

@Psychedelia yea it’s called the doddington estate in Battersea. It’s changed a bit but all the blocks are still there

[@lunallena77789]

Nostalgia is the word ... Big spelling mistake " used to be" is the correct way

[@simonyip5978]

0:25 it looks quite nice from the train, I don't think that high rise flats are inherently bad, it comes down to standard of construction, good maintenance, a community spirit, not tolerating nuisance neighbours and anti social behaviour, security, attention to aesthetics, etc. Look at the hundreds of private apartment blocks being built in London and the other UK cities, 30/40/50+ storey's are not unusual and are highly desirable properties.

[@charlieminaj2]

Did she have a tv license 🤣🤣

[@louisecashman8315]

Sad to see whole communities trapped in these concrete jungles. People are social beings they deserve to belong to like minded people to survive the banal day to day life expectations.

[@missj.d9187]

What a fantastically wise woman just like my Nan and all my Aunts were. Not a qualification between them but nearly always the most wise people in the room despite having the odd tipple in a pub where the judges drank. By the way I often did my homework in the same pub and the judges were normally the most stupid ones in the pub totally out of touch!

[@marklola12]

It's the people who make slums not the actual buildings by the way, most people who move into these places end up not looking after them, obviously the owners need to keep it maintained also but you do not get slums without the people who live in them and make them slums

[@primalconvoy]

Although that might be partly true, such building projects are well-documented as having been made with shoddy materials (asbestos, etc), were firetraps, suffered from "concrete rot" and their design enabled criminals to easily hide from or evade the police. It's easy to accuse residents there of bad behaviour, but for some, the poverty, lack of support from the council, bad infrastructur, etc are reasons why such places fell into disrepair.

[@Consistentlycrazy]

All it takes is one bad family or person to move in and it can ruin the whole block of flats. What was once a respectable,clean looked after block becomes a complete shit hole with the neighbours from hell.

[@samjones6258]

Truth is they didn't suit poor people who were used to living in houses on the ground. Some poor families are seriously dysfunctional families and so they woukd ruin it for everyone else.

[@jstone247]

What misery.

[@mxbx307]

When was this horrific place torn down, then?

[@briansparks8528]

Better than a cardboard box under tower bridge

[@kopthelotklopp1523]

Unfortunately if you're poor and living in London you can't expect the council to house you in expensive luxury. You can't blame the council for building accommodation on the cheap. If you want to live somewhere more palatial you need to work hard for it and/or move somewhere with a smaller population. Likewise people from other towns with high unemployment would move in to London to earn money.

[@primalconvoy]

I'm sure cheap, functional and prettier buildings could have been made, but at the time, poorly designed tower blocks and an infatuation with concrete led to what was in that video.

[@coranford7463]

Some people are working extremley hard to pay the rent

[@colinpartridge6423]

If it was up to me, the architects that socially-engineered these brutalist monstrosities would be serving life sentences, living in them.

[@rustshoo5068]

“… in this barrack-looking way.” They are the little people, who are all the same, like battery hens. The regimenters corralling the people this way see them as masses who think the same, or don’t think much at all. These regimenters probably view only themselves as individual thinkers. Woe betide the priest who sees only the church congregation and not the child of God! The tendency to corral is happening all round us even today.

[@marklola12]

Here's the full documentary...kzbin.info/www/bejne/rnnIhp1ofc99m80

[@maximhollandnederlandthene7640]

It's also their mindset isn't it !?

[@memorymuncher2738]

People make slums😢

[@southsudani983]

most of these ppl must have passed away

[@lardy70s]

Well done for working that one out. 60 odd year old 50 years ago?. 👏

[@giovannipala6336]

When Britain’s Labour Party tried to emulate their idols, the USSR. Disgraceful.

[@spiritofthetime]

To be fair, Heath's Conservative manifestos in the early 70s were trying to outbid Wilson's for number of homes being built. Both parties sacrificed quality for quantity; Ronan Point was the result.

[@primalconvoy]

I've been in an ex-Soviet tower block. One thing I noticed was that they were built to last and VERY warm. The floors were heated and I could walk around barefoot in my undies and still be warm in the middle of a Moscow winter.

[@conradmeinecke5861]

1971 was under Ted Heath and the Tories. read a history book perhaps.

[@Grrrrrrr123]

So horrible

[@michaelturner4457]

Wasn't all since since been demolished?

[@trevorphillips3340]

The adults in this vid are all dead now

[@coranford7463]

Your turn is next 😁👍

[@lardy70s]

Bravo for working that out

[@FigaroHey]

The isolation those tower blocks imposed is pure social engineering. Isolated from neighbors and reliant on government media not to feel alone means dissension and action by the lower orders is quashed, but also that they were more dependent on government instead of on family and neighbours for their needs. Destroy traditional communities that bred similar values and attitudes; isolate people with media as their main source of information; make people reliant on the government for all assistance in everyday life? Sounds like a plan to stamp out that pesky human spirit and turn people into useful idiots for the ruling classes.

[@Dr.D00p]

When working class people are treated as nothing more than social engineering experiments by the over educated, left wing, middle class architectural profession. ...and its still the same today.

[@4legsgood]

Soviet brutalism - I think that's the architectural style ?

[@jonathanleblanc2140]

"What were the architects thinking?" Municipal socialism.

[@leninsfeetleninsfeet5018]

this is an a capitalist society lmao. Better live comfortably in a concrete block, than starve on the streets under a capitalistic mindset

[@jonathanleblanc2140]

@@leninsfeetleninsfeet5018 right because no one ever starved under socialism.

[@charlieminaj2]

@@jonathanleblanc2140 that’s true

[@pabo-qv3nx]

Depressing Architecture, looks like it's from the soviet union.

[@chinny_reckon]

At least working class people could afford to live in London in those days.

[@JohnSmith-xx5ou]

The people make the slums Not the building

[@primalconvoy]

That's not accurate.

[@James-oo1yq]

True! But 95% of good people have to live beside the 5% who make it a miserable place to live

[@samjones6258]

That's partially true...but these 1960s and 1970s huge council estates with tower blocks were not made properly or safely but were made cheaply and dangerously. Remember Ronan Point!

[@James-oo1yq]

@@samjones6258 They were, but that doesn't necessarily mean they all turn into miserable places to live. Your neighbours have a massive impact on your standard of living, and you can't just put up a lovely hedge or fence to block them out. As a kid I lived in a tower block for 8 years and enjoyed it, but as an adult it's a horrible thought to have to raise children In these places

[@Ruffbiker68]

Please please take us back to then England has fallen